Chapter 38

"Feeling a little better?" The raspy female voice startles me from the doorway, and I attempt to cover myself.

"Darling," she scoffs, "You don't have anything I haven't seen a thousand times before. And we all watched you walk naked through the front door an hour ago.

Grabbing a little first aid kit and a washcloth, she takes a seat on a small wooden stool beside the tub that I'm soaking in.

"Thank you." I gesture at the tub "For this."

"You looked like it was needed." She dips the washcloth into the water and wrings the excess from it. The drops and suds splatter over the sleeves of her silk shirt, leaving sputters of darkened fabric and likely ruining it.

Lifting the cloth to my face, she gently cleans around the cuts on my cheeks and my unbelievably tender, swollen eye. She's meticulous and careful, and I can't help but think about Samuel bathing me. How loving and intimate it was as he slid the cloth over my skin.

I take a deep breath, but it does nothing to stop the tears from trickling down my face.

They killed him.

And it's my fault.

He's dead because of me.

"Oh, Darling." she blows over my cheek, drying the skin to place a butterfly bandage. "You broke the rules. You don't fall for the John."

Bringing the bandage to my face, she squeezes together the open cut on my cheek, and I flinch when her well-manicured nails dig into my skin.

"And you never cross your Madame." She continues to squeeze the tender skin unnecessarily hard as she places a second bandage.

"I'm sorry, Madame," I grit the words through my pain, and she releases my face.

"Sorry doesn't make the other girls forget about your betrayal. You need to be punished." She dips her hands in the water to rinse my blood from them. Shaking them as she stands, she grabs a towel to try them. "You will need to serve as a lesson to the others what happens when you leave me."

"I didn't?—"

"You've been playing house with him for weeks on my dime." She looms over the tub. "And look at you, so fucking battered and bruised that I couldn't sell you for twenty dollars to start paying it off."

"What are you going to do to me?"

"I haven't quite decided yet, Darling." Her heels click across the floor as she brings me a towel. She holds it open, silently instructing me to get out of the tub. As I stand, she wraps it around me, the bottom dusting against the water and soaking the edges.

"I'm not going to kill you." She takes my hand and helps me to step over the high edge of the clawfoot tub. "I need you to be a constant memorable reminder, not a quickly forgotten scare. I'll have one of the girls bring you some ice for that eye."

"Madame?" I call after her in vain as she walks from the bathroom.

Not bothering to find any clothes, I climb into the bed with the towel still wrapped around me. Grabbing the pillow, I wrap my arms around it and squeeze it tightly. I bury my face in it to hide my screams. Violently expelling my lungs into the pillow until I'm exhausted, I continue to hold it to my face to muffle my uncontrollable sobs.

I try to get some rest while I'm left alone, but when I close my eyes, all I can see is Samuel.

The knife sliding from his stomach. Him crumpling to the floor. A pool of blood oozing from beneath him as he stared into my eyes. Those normally dark eyes filled with sadness and regret like nothing I have ever seen.

Silently telling me how sorry he was as he slipped away.